The top 10 best-performing investment funds in the decade since Lehman went bust is dominated by small companies players.

Tech, biotech and Japanese funds make up the rest of the list, which you can find below. The best performer was Legg Mason Japan Equity, up 720 per cent, and the average growth across the whole top 10 was 516 per cent.

By comparison, the FTSE 100 has returned 109 per cent since September 2008.

FundExpert.co.uk boss Brian Dennehy, who compiled the top 10 list, admits he wouldn't have predicted any of these sectors would fare so well when Lehman Brothers collapsed, marking one of the most fraught moments of the financial crisis.

Top 10 since Lehman: Fund performance between 15 September 2008 and 4 September 2018 (Source FundExpert.co.uk)

'September 2008 was a very uncomfortable time for investors generally, and those sitting at the heart of the investment business, as I was,' he says.

'I certainly wouldn’t have thrown my money, or that of my clients, into UK smaller companies at that time, though I am ordinarily a smaller company enthusiast.

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'After all this is typically the highest risk area of the stock market, and most illiquid. And bank lending was drying up, a big problem for smaller businesses.

'Nor would I have invested into technology funds. I, and our clients, had successfully sidestepped this one from 1999, after which they fell nigh on 90 per cent.

'Japan? It was still a long way down from its high in 1989, and although I had tickled with Japan funds, I had no great inclination to invest in Japan in September 2008.'

Dennehy says the value of knowing the top 10 funds since the Lehman bust is very limited as it relies on hindsight.

'The answer is to have a process to select funds which you can apply at any time, whatever the condition of the market,' he says.

Lehman Brothers goes bust: Infamous collapse on 15 September 2018 marks one of the most fraught moments of the financial crisis.

He floats a different approach: buy the three top performing funds of the last six months from the universe of UK stock market funds – all companies, equity income, and smaller companies - then review them every six months, and switch into the latest ones with the best growth or 'momentum' in the prior six months.

But Dennehy says the Dynamic UK Portfolio created from swapping funds every six months in the way described above would have returned 388 per cent over the past decade, which compares favourably to the average of the top 10 funds.

'The lesson? Have a clear and repeatable investing process. Make sure there is prolonged evidence of success. Apply it with discipline. Make more money!' he concludes.

FUND JARGON BUSTER

The investment industry's world of abbreviations...Acc: Accumulation - any income generated by the fund like dividends or interest is automatically reinvested.Inc: Income - any income generated is distributed by the fund instead of being reinvested. Dis: Distribution - any income generated is distributed by the fund instead of being reinvested. R: Retail - the fund is aimed at ordinary investors. I/Inst: Institutional - the fund is aimed at corporate investors like pension funds. A, B, M, X etc: Different fund houses use letters for different things. Check with them what they stand for. NT/No trail: Some fund houses use this name on clean funds which carry no commissions for financial advisers, supermarkets or brokers, just the fee levied by the fund manager. But other fund houses use different letters - I, D or Y, for example - so you need to find out for yourself which are clean funds. Gr: Stands for gross. GBP/£: Fund denominated in pounds. EUR: Fund denominated in euros. USD/$: Fund denominated in US dollars. Compiled with online stockbroker The Share Centre